Department of Information and Public Relations

Press Release No. 328/15

CHIEF SECRETARY LAUNCHED WEBSITE ACCESSIBLE TO PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES

Shillong, May 25, 2015: Meghalaya Chief Secretary Mr. P.B.O Warjri today launched the website of the office of the Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities, Meghalaya which is accessible to Persons with Disabilities at his office chamber. The inauguration programme was also attended by Mr. T. Dkhar, Commissioner and Secretary, Social Welfare department, Mr. C. C. M. Mihsil and Mr. H. M. Shangpliang, Secretaries, Social Welfare department, Smti C. Kharkongor, Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities, Mr. Timothy Dkhar, Senior Technical Director and State Informatics Officer and Officers from the Social Welfare department.

The website at www.megscpwd.gov.in has been developed and designed by the National Informatics Centre, Meghalaya under a Scheme for Implementation of the Persons with Disabilities Act (SIPDA) which is a Grant-in-aid funded by the Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment, Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities. The web portal was designed under the supervision and guidance of Mr. Timothy Dkhar, Senior Technical Director and State Informatics Officer, NIC, Meghalaya. Two Assistant Programmers had been recruited specifically for designing the website, Ms. Ibanrihun Thangkhiew, and Mr. Banjoplang Nongsiej. It may be noted that Mr. Banjoplang Nongsiej is hearing impaired, he had prepared the sign language version of certain web pages of the website, and also tested the accessibility features of the same. Mr. Banjoplang Nongseij completed his BTech Computer Science from Kalasalingam University in the year 2013. The website of the State Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities has been built and designed with different features to provide accessibility for Persons with Disabilities so that Persons with Disabilities can navigate the web portal by using assistive technology that has been incorporated in it making it easier for users to control the screen display and to browse the website. It is written in plain language so that users can better understand the content. Portlets of NGOs working for the welfare of Persons with Disabilities have also been incorporated.

The portal is developed for easy access to person with disabilities and the features includes Screen Readers for the benefit of the blind users. The website has been designed such that text-to-speech software called screen readers can be used. For the benefit of users who do not have such screen readers, a page has been provided in the portal, which contains links to various screen readers some of which are propriety softwares and some which may be downloaded for free. Wherever possible, hyperlinks are underlined to ensure that colour blind users will be able to notice them. The hyperlink blue colour has been used for all active hyperlink text items and flashing effects are avoided so as not to affect users prone to seizures caused by these effects and put them at risk.

To make it easier for users with poor eyesight to read and understand the content, option to magnify text and images has been incorporated into the website and text resize features has also been provided whereby a user can easily increase or decrease the font size to suit the users comfort level for reading. All images throughout the website have been assigned an Alt-text attribute to non-text content in web pages. It is read by screen readers in place of images giving a description of the image being displayed thereby making it accessible to those with visual or certain cognitive disabilities. Alt-text is also displayed in place of the image in browsers if the image file is not loaded or when the user has chosen not to view images.

In order to increase readability further option to change the spacing between characters of the text has also been provided in the website and sign language videos for the hearing impaired that are more comfortable with sign language, have also been provided in the portal on selected pages of the website. Different colour schemes are incorporated so that the users can choose the theme that is pleasing to their eyes and the contrast schemes which have been included are standard, white text on black background, yellow text on blue background and black on white background.

The website can be browsed using a keyboard by pressing the Tab and Shift + Tab keys, etc. which will help users with poor motor skills, who cannot use a mouse or even standard keyboard to navigate across the links. All .pdf Documents in the portal have been made accessible, every page in the document has been provided with a reading order, which is essential for screen readers to read the documents in the correct order.

The Web page content is organized using appropriate headings and subheadings tags and these tags provide a readable structure to screen readers. H1 indicates the main heading, H2 indicates a subheading whereas H3 as sub-sub heading and an appropriate name for each Web page is specified that helps users to understand the page content easily. As the screen reading software often ignores or stumbles across words in capital letters, this portal has avoided presenting text in all capitalized letters and screen readers may interpret capitalized text as an acronym and start spelling it. To help users navigate the website easily, the portal have provided help links and steps at the footer links of the website.